"Robin Farley, cruise industry analyst, UBS Investment Research, visited recently with top cruise line leaders in Miami. What did she learn? Overall, she sees good earnings potential for the lines ahead.

She said Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL) and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCHL) have both “been more vocal regarding their goal to double earnings by 2017."

While Carnival Corporation (CCL) may not have communicated that message as succinctly, it too is providing guidance for a doubling of EPS (earning per share) and to double-digit returns, Farley says, but just a bit more indirectly.

Farley says in three to four years Carnival Corp. might also post a double-digit return on investment. She said UBS Investment Group’s 2017 earning per share estimate for Carnival is $4.38; that's double what CCL achieved in 2014."

2 - Increase prices. Already seen that in the drinks. Ship drinks are now on par with most hotel and bar prices in the US - thus the heavier liquor policing. Photo prices are now insanely high as well.

I fully agree with that statement & I'm sure it's going to hurt them in the long run. Recently on the CB you could see that ship is desperate need of a dry dock to do repairs that we desperately needed like plumbing issues that on our cruise were being patched. A week after we left the ship I heard that there was a major flood of raw sewerage in a few cabins in the same area we avoided for 3 days because of the stench.Just how long can they keep doing the on spot repairs before the ship gains a reputation of being a dump and should be avoided at all costs? Other things like broken showers/doors at the Lotus pool, wave machine that didn't work at all, broken lounge chairs (again Lotus pool), worn chairs in the Piazza with cushions flattened to 1/4 inch, keyboards that have had the numbers worn off completely, no MUTS blankets at all. The crew did their best to keep everything clean but there's only so much they can do without actual replacement. They can't continue to operate in that fashion without getting a bad reputation which will cause people will avoid the ship altogether.It makes us think about booking the Royal once again and we didn't have a favorable view of that ship the first time but at least it wasn't worn thin form all the use.